The 2013 World Science Festival took place on May 29-June 2 in New York City. We offered a slate of exciting new programs and old favorites this year, all aimed at unlocking the beauty and complexity of science for everyone. Sign up for our newsletter to stay connected and get exclusive interviews, stories, and updates.

SPOOKY ACTION: THE DRAMA OF QUANTUM MECHANICS

In 1935, Albert Einstein and two colleagues published a landmark paper revealing that quantum mechanics allows widely separated objects to influence one another, even though nothing travels between them. Einstein called it spooky and rejected the idea, arguing instead that it exposed a major deficiency in the quantum theory. But, decades later, experiments established this unsettling concept correct, upending conventional notions of reality. This program, back by popular demand, takes the audience on a journey that brings this insight and the remarkable history of reality-bending quantum mechanics vividly to life.

This program is part of the Big Ideas Series.

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Participants

Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, and is widely recognized for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory, including the co-discoveries of mirror symmetry and topology change. His first book for general audiences, The Elegant Universe was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and has sold more than a million copies worldwide. His more recent books, The Fabric of the Cosmos and The Hidden Reality, were both New York Times bestsellers, and inspired the Washington Post to call him “the single best explainer of abstruse concepts in the world today.” Greene’s latest project, World Science U, brings science education online with innovative digital courses available to anyone with an interest in science.

Greene makes frequent media appearances on programs such as Charlie Rose, The Colbert Report and David Letterman. He has hosted two NOVA specials, based on The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, which were nominated for four Emmy Awards and won a George Foster Peabody Award. Professor Greene is co-director of Columbia’s Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, and with producer Tracy Day, he is co-founder of the World Science Festival.

Maia Guest trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, London, and has worked in theater, television and film in London, New York, Los Angeles, and throughout the United States. She can be currently seen playing a scientist in BYUtv’s new period scripted drama, Granite Flats, and has appeared on shows on PBS, VH1, BBC, MTV.

Guest has extensive experience with classical works, having performed many roles in the plays of Shakespeare, Moliere, Chekhov, and Congreve; she has also done original contemporary works at New York theaters including HERE, Primary Stages, the Westbeth, the Theater at St. Clements, as well as regionally. She wrote and starred in the world premiere adaptation of James Baldwin’s landmark novel Giovanni’s
Room at London’s Drill Hall. Maia voices novels for audible.com.

Carl Howell is an actor and musician whose previous collaborations with John Christian Plummer and Maia Guest include Twelfth Night at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and The Seagull with World’s End Theater. He has appeared Off-Broadway in Twelfth Night at The Pearl Theatre Company and The Land Whale Murders with Shelby Company. Other regional credits include Romeo and Juliet as Romeo, Cymbeline, and Love’s Labour’s Lost. As an actor selected for the inaugural T.S. Eliot US/UK Exchange, Carl appeared in Halo/Titanic at The Old Vic in London. He has twice been selected for workshops with Kevin Spacey at BAM and The Old Vic, and was featured on WNYC’s Shakespeare Marathon at The Greene Space. In October, he will appear with Theater Reconstruction Ensemble in Salesmen at HERE Arts Center. A native of Hammonton, NJ, he earned his BFA at NYU.

A graduate of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater B.F.A. actor training program, Michael Roush moved to New York City to act with the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. Following that season, he worked to bring “We Happy Animals,” a new play by Andrew Kramer, to the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival where he originated the role of Ben. He went on to play Judas in “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” with Sanguine Theater Company, star in the independent film Lessons from Strangers with AndUP Productions, and play Romeo in “Romeo and Juliet” with the Southwest Shakespeare Company. His most recent credits include Hamlet in “Hamlet” directed by Richard Corley, Sean Carrington in “Bees and Lions,” a new play by Sarah M. Duncan, and Ted in the reading of Crystal Skillman’s new play, “Wild,” directed by Evan Caccioppoli. He is also a committed member of The Factory, which has taken root in New York City with the help of director Tim Carroll.